The Long Island Lolita and Other Intimate Acts

As I lay on my bed in the darkness of my room I decide to sit up and sluggishly switch the overhead light on. I lie back down on my back and stare at it. Inside the bowl-like fixture is a large cockroach, frantically sprawling it's tiny legs about in an attempt to pull himself up along the slick inclination of the fixture's sides. I stare, fixated on the shadow of this little creature as I watch it slowly die. I wonder how it got there. I know it will croak in due time but I do nothing but eagerly witness with my tired eyes. I can't decide if it's a lack of effort on my behalf or the fact that I don't value the lives of cockroaches, especially ones that enter my room without my knowledge and make themselves at home above my head. Eventually as the light continues to burn and radiate increasing heat his articulation drastically weakens and the tiny legs that once stretched upward in hopes of an escape are tired and hopeless as perhaps that at this moment it has either accepted its fate or is simply being burned alive. I decide that it is the latter and meanwhile realize that I left the light on because I had nothing better to do than to watch it die. Now lies a motionless vessel known only to me as a shadow under the burning bulb. I reposition myself and eventually sit up again to switch the light off.